The Quest for World Sanity
The Quest for World Sanity
Ana Paula Arendt*
I transcribe herewith for readers and friends an excerpt from an interview with Professor Erich Fromm, an important German-American psychoanalyst during the 1950s and 1960s.
The interview given to Mr. Smith on a television program in 1960, can be watched at:
The book the interviewer refers to, The Sane Society (1955), is available at: https://historicalunderbelly.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/erich-fromm-the-sane-society.pdf.
I also offer some brief comments on Fromm’s ideas in the light of recent events. At the end, the reader might check the comments of A. I. on the importance of bringing those issues to debate and deepening them.
What do I think of his approach? Professor Fromm criticises egocentrism as a form of alienation that perpetuates collective insanity; but he does not escape it, suggesting that there would be no more human race after an atomic war. Various societies have chosen to exclude themselves from the arms race and world conflicts and, although they would be significantly affected by a larger conflict, their existence would not be threatened. Life in Africa, or in small towns in Latin America, would certainly continue largely the same; much of the populations in what was called the "third world" would continue living with similar challenges in the daily adversity of survival.
The examples Fromm uses to denote the lack of mental sanity in those who handle atomic weapons also seem somewhat childish, in the sense that competition between countries implies that. If the U.S. did not arm itself, it would be at the mercy of those other countries that chose to develop such weapons, or of other authoritarian governments. The sense of reality that he proposes would imply understanding that countries arm themselves; and that, to defend an internal order and the stability of power relations between countries, some armament is necessary, at least to deter possible attacks from those who are not sane. Si vis pacem, para bellum. I also think there is a certain childishness in ignoring that some institutions have established reward mechanisms for those who wish to arm themselves and engage in conflict to gain advantages in society and government.
But he is speaking to his audience, the middle-class Westerners, engaged in the contradictory thinking that, by having control of atomic weapons to deter or retaliate, that would be enough to guarantee greater security for their citizens, which we know is false. He refers to the average citizen who delegates the ability to think and act to their leaders, idolising the country or their government to avoid reflecting on the consequences of this problem.
It is particularly timely what Dr. Fromm reminds us in this interview to warn us of the triumph of fascism in any society: “In fact all the great norms, whether you take the 10 Commandments, or the teachings of Buddha, or the teaching of Christ are norms of human sanity which refer to human existence, to mankind, and they are all based on the idea also that the loyalty to man and the values in man are higher than the loyalties to any given societies, and the values represented by them.”, he says. For Fromm, a sane mind could, indeed, set aside multilateral forums and international agreements and favor personal loyalties in order to prevent misunderstandings or a conflict that could put the world at risk.
Professor Erich Fromm’s work is considered by some to be of a Marxist ideology because it criticises the reification of man. This is so much so that Noam Chomsky frequently comments on his work. For Fromm, the objective of production and consumption makes a person forget about himself and live in function of external materiality; it uproots the sense of life in man, transforming him into a thing, into what he seeks, and nullifies his psychic well-being, his ability to remain well alone, with himself, and others.
But Fromm goes beyond Marxism, also addressing the failure to see mental health as an adjustment to the standards of any society, whether capitalist or communist—especially because the ends of communism are also strictly material. He criticises Stalinism the same way he criticises N4z1sm and f4scism, calling them “authoritarian idolatry.” When these standards alienate the human being, with speeches of patriotism and slogans, he reflects that society becomes insane—and sane individuals must seek a certain isolation to remain sane.
In Brazil, it would be very far from a Marxist political thought to apply Fromm’s thinking. For him, forgetting about oneself, the emptying of oneself—or the death of man, as he states, in the 20th century, in contrast to the death of God in the 19th century—contributes to idolising a country, leader, government, or party; but this idea could be applied both to the far-right movement, which seeks to establish an exceptional regime based on violence, through a military coup, which is identified as Bolsonaroism; and to the far-left movement, which seeks to establish the decision-making monopoly of a single party, through institutional means, which has been called communism. Both political movements are authoritarian, according to Fromm’s reflection, because they relegate to a secondary or final plan the values of humanity, of laws that preserve the human being. They place a power objective as a priority and the final goal—the silencing of politics understood as the pursuit of collective well-being, paradoxically.
Fromm also has an important work on the dysfunctionality of the individual in not knowing how to handle freedom, and considers totalitarianism and authoritarianism a refuge of escape for people who have no self-awareness and do not know how to deal with the benefits of freedom. In this regard, he criticises Marx: “He did not recognise the irrational forces in man which make him afraid of freedom, and which produce his lust for power and his destructiveness” (op. cit., p. 257).
However, I became somewhat suspicious of the little encouragement and space he gives to the interviewer/interlocutor to reflect and ask questions, which perhaps reflects the limitation of public debate space at that time, in the 1960s. But this only confirms the picture he suggests, of a society with low autonomy for individuals, who seek answers and solutions outside of themselves, excluding themselves from the possible answers. I believe that a closed way of thinking and overly rounded reasoning, based on authority, fails to grasp the complexity of the reality we live, which demands the perspective of the other.
This suspicion seems valid, especially when Dr. Fromm dismisses the patients’ own evaluation of their well-being level as irrelevant. I don’t disagree that there needs to be an objective evaluation mechanism that can advance the patients’ perception of their own condition. Certainly, a person should not presume to have reached well-being if they have an uncontrollable need for tranquilisers, a drink, or some form of reality escape to feel good. But disregarding the importance of the patient’s account and their view of themselves is an extremely authoritarian facet of his thinking. This thinking also flirts with what is unfalsifiable, in the vein of Freud. After all, leisure, art, and imagination are important resources, and even the most enlightened beings, such as Buddha and Christ, or those who transcended material restrictions: they still dedicated themselves to the imagination of stories and parables, moments of companionship and frugality, when well-being in reality demanded it. Christ had a drink with his friends before the crucifixion, and on that occasion He produced a salvific discourse of incalculable value. The Last Supper is now celebrated in Masses and remembered in services as a monument to well-being, to eating together, something sacred.
The measure he proposes for well-being, of remaining calmly alone and not fleeing from a conversation with someone, I agree, is excellent. But what I want to say is that even this positive concept of well-being should not be taken as an absolute measure. All human beings, in certain circumstances, can react inertly, or with irritation, or suffer nervous breakdowns, in the face of perplexity, scarcity, storms, and extreme adversity. It would certainly not be appropriate to maintain a conversation with someone who accuses or despises you, or is in crisis; unless the individual is a health agent or for work purposes, evidently. It is assumed that he means that well-being is lacking for those who cannot remain alone, even if they have all the necessary resources for it; and for those who flee from a conversation, even if they are valued and welcomed in that conversation. But even with these reflections that common sense requires, I think it is not advisable to affirm an absolute concept of well-being; it is necessary to weigh and better understand the circumstances in which the person is living and how they respond before drawing any conclusions about their sanity. Any absolute perspective tends to result in an ineffective tool to perceive reality.
Moreover, Professor Fromm, at least in these two books, on the sane society and the problem of freedom, does not delve into violence as a mechanism of escape. So to speak: he addresses the pathology of normality, but not the valorisation of abnormality, a recent phenomenon we have witnessed in our societies, especially in virtual environments. He addresses the problem of destructiveness in a dyad: destructiveness leads to suffering, creativity leads to happiness (p. 36).
But today, this is no longer a dual problem. In newspapers and daily life, the average individual needs to constantly satisfy himself, as an observer and co-participant, in events where individuals, institutions, or governments are attacking, accusing, or blaming someone—someone taken as more vulnerable than others, for various reasons, or in need of adjustment; or because of an identity external to the group—such as being a foreigner, for example.
Professor Fromm deduces the problem of destructiveness, however, from alienation. The lack of cultural development would not allow the individual to satisfy themselves with principles or with the understanding that reason provides.
“Creation and destruction, love and hate, are not two instincts which exist independently. They are both answers to the same need for transcendence, and the will to destroy must rise when the will to create cannot be satisfied”. (op. cit., p. 36)
“In observing the quality of thinking in alienated man, it is striking to see how his intelligence has developed and how his reason has deteriorated. He takes his reality for granted; he wants to eat it, consume it, touch it, manipulate it. He does not even ask what is behind it, why things are as they are, and where they are going. You cannot eat the meaning, you cannot consume the sense, and as far as the future is concerned—après nous le déluge! Even from the nineteenth century to our day, there seems to have occurred an observable increase in stupidity, if by this we mean the opposite to reason, rather than to intelligence” (op. cit., p. 166-167).
Fromm’s approach does not suggest that violence, either real or discursive, is somehow linked to the individual’s need to ignore or rid themselves of their own discomforts, and could constitute, in itself, one of the escape routes. Professor Fromm assigns a neutral or immediate pleasure value to escape routes in general; and the results of frequently resorting to these escape routes would be alienation, to which he assigns the sense of the pathology of normality.
What we have witnessed, however, in these years, is the valorisation of abnormality, aggressive and destructive behaviour, pathology; and not a pathology of normality. The rise in the expectation that abnormality will establish itself as a social order seems also something new. It is not difficult to ponder that societies that degenerate in such a way, establishing a new order based on aggression, will dissolve into an unstable social, political, and economic structure, as authoritarian regimes dissolved, some with shorter, others with longer periods of atonement. Failed states and narco-states also fall into this unhappy destiny.
In the current context, perhaps a more realistic starting point would be to perceive abnormality, violence—accusation, persecution, struggle, aggression—as an escape, explaining aggressiveness both by the temporary satisfaction of predatory instincts and by the promise of self-preservation; and not only addressing destructiveness as a result of alienation or frustration of the creative desire, or violence as a pathology.
In the same way, what has been presented and sought for collective acceptance as “masculine energy” (sic) seems to be an obsessive energy, associated with the release of destructive instincts; as if men could not find an intense and healthy masculine energy through creativity, instead of destructiveness; or as if women could not be destructive, and also enjoy the attributes of this masculine energy associated with aggressiveness. Behind this discourse of masculine energy, however, is the factor of pleasure in destructiveness. That is perhaps a concept of energy the Greek Federation of Football took in consideration when it expelled Giorgos Katidis in 2013, and when it published that “The player's energy to salute spectators as a N4z1 is brutal and deeply affects all victims of N4z1 atrocities, hurting the peaceful and deeply human character of football. The Federation unequivocally and categorically condemns the attitude.
In psychoanalysis, the idea that civilisation, by limiting the destructive masculine instincts, makes man unhappy, is associated with psychic regression: it is based on the premise that culture and art could not be appropriated by primitive man, and that primitive man could not achieve satisfaction and purpose through these cultural goods. And culture would be needed, to value and satisfy oneself from principles. This is difficult to reconcile with the reality we observe, in which we find cave paintings and musical competitions in slums; even though these spaces may not have, so to speak, the patrimony or rewards of an allegedly advanced civilisation. The creative act has always been associated with a divine and greater nature that lent the prestige of its characteristics to human nature; but even the most primitive human beings gained satisfaction and pleasure from the creative process.
Would a society be saner if it were more concerned with rationality in new hires and in distributing its human resources well, rather than depreciating human resources and producing layoffs? In managing conflicts and treating them diplomatically, rather than giving vent to aggressive instincts in a raw and direct approach? In preventing conflicts to register fewer crimes and require fewer denunciations, rather than registering more problems to punish more crimes and expand denunciations?
Considering that institutions, even so-called democratic ones, offer rewards that value abnormality, Fromm’s work seems an interesting starting point for analyzing the moment we live in, especially when differentiating the energy and vitality of well-being from obsessive energy linked to pathology. In any case, he offers us a valid perspective on the development of the mental health field, and it seems worthwhile to revisit his work to enhance our reflection on these times. Have a good reading!
* Ana Paula Arendt is a Brazilian political scientist, poet, and diplomat.
Interview with Erich Fromm on Mental Health in 1960 with Mr. Smith. Transcription.
“Fromm: If we continue with our kind of mental health for a few generarations more, then I think we are at a point where, psychologically, any productive society would break up and deteriorate. In fact, I want to say one thing. It’s one thing whether a person has symtoms and is aware of not being well, and it’s quite another thing whether a person has very little of a psychic well-being, but is not aware of it because he is able to kill himself by all sorts of avenues of escape, and I believe that a great number of so-called “normal people”, objectively speaking, are more sick than a number of people who consider themselves neurotic because they are aware of their symptoms.
Interviewer: How in fact can this be, Dr. Fromm, that a person can be sick, and yet feel no effects, have no symptoms of this sickness?
Fromm: For a very simple reason. In the first place, because everybody else is just as sick, and like in Well’s short story of the land of the blind, people consider normal that which everybody else shares with them. But specifically, our culture offers a great number of avenues of escape. So, if people would stay alone by themselves for 3 days without radio, and drinking, and cigarettes, or anything else, we would have 100 thousand of nervous breakdowns. But we offer to our population, under the name of fun, and pleasure, and leisure time consumption – and what not… We offer such an amount of escapes, avenues of escape, that most people forget themselves. In fact, I would say they forget that they are human, in a deeper sense.
Interviewer: We’re talking here about mental illness, mental health, let me come right to the point. What do you mean by mental health?
Fromm. Well. What I mean by mental health, I am afraid, is different from what many other psychiatrists or psychologists mean by mental health. I don’t mean to be unfair, and I certainly don’t mean to have the opinion that all other psychiatrists… I hope there are many who don’t share this opinion. But certainly the opinion of many is that mental health is actually the same as adjustment. The same as not being sicker than the average guy. The same as being reduced to the social current level of unhappiness. Not to be, not to stick out from the picture of the general run of people. Now, there is another aspect to it, many people define today mental health actually by the absence of sickness, sickness, again, defined very often in terms of adjustment, lack of adjustment, or at least in function of concrete symptoms, like insomnia, alcoholism, this, that, and the other. I would define mental health not in terms of absence of sickness, but in a positive sense of wellness, of well-being.
Interviewer: What does this well-being embrace?
Fromm: It’s a very funny thing what well-being is very elusive. But you’ll see it when you see it. In fact you don’t have a chance to see it very often. Because the people who really show a state of well-being are rare today. I would say you see it, first of all, by the vitality and energy of another person. But not energy of an obsessional kind, by the energy in the person who can be alone with himself; who can be alone with another person without trying to run away. You can see in the joy of a person, but at the same time, in his capacity to be sad, when there is a reason to be sad. You can see in his unending interest and response to people and to things. You can see in the clarity of awareness of other people and of situation. You might even eventually measure in the tonus of their muscles; you might even eventually measure it physiologically; and maybe physiologists would have already measured it if they were more interested in wel-being rather than in the absense of sickness.
Interviewer: Can one measure it in terms of a subjective feeling, is this what does it involve, this essentially?
Fromm: No, I think like any other opinions about oneself, most of what people think about their well-being is delusional, there are many people that feel well today because they take tranquilizers. Or bentagrin. Or this, or that, or a drink. Or they have to have fun, or they have to act in some obssessional way. What the statement people make about their own state of well-being or happiness are utterly unreliable.
Interviewer: If this subjective feeling is a poor criterion, and elusory, and deceptive one, can you give as a positive, and accurate criterion? What does it involve?
Fromm: I would say that intensity and clarity of awareness and response to the world. Tha lack of egocentricity, and at the same time the intensity of energy and vitality.
Interviewer: It leads then to a kind of realism then, does it? With the regard of the perception of things.
Fromm: Yes, indeed. I would say what could define well-being, also from one angle is a capacity for realism. Of experiencing the world oneself as it is, and responding to it.
Interviewer: Let’s follow up this lead for a moment. Do you think that American society is a realistic Society?
Fromm: Indeed, I don’t think that at all, I think we are probably one of the most unrealistic societies which have ever lived under the sun.
Interviewer: Now, in what respect?
Fromm: Well, we kid ourselves about love, we kid ourselves about our aims, we kid ourselves about our individuality, when we’re actually conforming all the time, but I could give, and I want to give a more decisive and important example, and that is our attitude towards the threat of the self-destruction of the whole world. We sit here, we know that there is a good chance that not only this country, but our whole civilization, all we stand for, our children and grandchildren will be destroyed completely destroyed by an atomic war, and yet we talk glibly about it, we have signs for shelters in the cities in which we know there will be no shelter if a hydrogen bomb falls on them. We talk about all sorts of measures, we talk about victorious war, we talk glibly about “if war comes, then…” without an awareness… Except merely intellectually… That if war comes, this is the end of all of us, and for the whole society, this is not only about America, this is practically the whole world. If you would find one person in New York City or any other big city who played around with a bomb that could kill thousands of people and there is a 50%-50% chance that it might go off, and he would say, “well, I’m just trying it out, and well, if people get killed, it’s just too bad, I would regret it, but it might be necessary….” You know very well where this man would land. While pratically our whole population behaved in the same manner, everybody knows the possibility of the suicide of the human race, and only very few people are truly aware of it. If that is not lack of realism, I don’t know what it is.
Interviewer. You have spoken of this lack of realism as one thing in our society working against mental health. Are there other things?
Fromm: Yes! Mr. Smith, I would say practically everything. Our culture is concerned primarily with production and consumption of things. And in this process, of being primarily concerned with things, the ever increasing production, the ever increasing consumption, we ourselves transform ourselves into things. Without knowing it. We lose our individuality in spite of the fact that we talk a lot about it. We follow leaders who don’t lead. We believe that we are acting on our own impulses and convictions and opinions, but actually we are manipulated by a whole industry, by slogans… And yet nobody has any true aim. We are alienated from ourselves, we don’t feel much, certainly, or we don’t feel intensely. All we are after is not to be different, and we are frightened to death to be just 2 feet away from the herd. And yet we are deceiving ourselves about this reality by talking all the time in terms of our traditional heritage. Of our judeo-christian tradition of humanistic philosophy, of individualily, and of what not.
Interviewer: What is the role of the mental health movement and psychiatry in this situation, are they helping?
Fromm: Well, I would hope they did, but I’m not so convinced, I’m sure some help, and some want to help. But I’m afraid there is a great danger also in the mental health movement today as there is in Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis and Psychology: I’m afraid that the role of the psychiatric movement, and the role of Psychology, and of Psychiatry are to help to adjust man somewhat more, to make him function more smoothly. You might say Psychology and mental health today is in danger. Psychologists are in danger to become the priests of the industrial system. That is to say, to help people adjust to a system where they are supposed to produce and consume in masses, in groups, directed by central organizations slogans, and yet at the same time not to be aware. They are dissatisfied with that; they suffer from it. They suffer from what the French already called the 18th Century, “la maladie du siècle”, the illness of the Century, from boredom, from the meaningless of life. Now there is a danger there, that they might get sick, that they might have manifest symptoms, that they might protest, that they might want to make life more meaningful, and then many psychologists come and say, “you shouldn’t be dissatisfied, if you are dissatisfied, that means you’re neurotic”. And will adjust you so that you accept a meaningless life without rebelling against it, without symptoms, and… You will have a nice funeral anyway.
Interviewer: Usually, Dr. Fromm, we reserve the word “insane” for individual. Do you think possible that some societies might be insane?
Fromm: But if we mean by (dash) -sane, “in-sane”, a lack of sanity, then, indeed, I think all societies can be insane, and many societies have been insane, and I’m afraid we are on our way to, unless some drastic changes occur. But I have to add one remark here: there are 2 concepts of sanity. A society can be sane in the sense that people adjust to it, and to its norms; but it can be insane in the universal sense of what is good for man as he exists. In fact all the great norms, whether you take the 10 Commandments, or the teachings of Buddha, or the teaching of Christ are norms of human sanity which refer to human existence, to mankind, and they are all based on the idea also that the loyalty to man and the values in man are higher than the loyalties to any given societies, and the values represented by them.
Interviewer: Dr. Fromm, is it possible for man to remain sane in today’s world?
Fromm: Yes, indeed, I think it is, and certainly men like Dr. Schweitzer are wonderful examples that it is possible. Now, most of us are not Schweitzers, in fact this is very rare, the genious of a man like Schweitzer, but I think it is possible, if one tries in the first place to see that certain disappointments, a certain sense of isolation, is a necessary consequence of remaining sane in a world in which there is so little sanity, and secondly, if one overcomes the sense of isolation by a deep sense of solidarity, and Oneness, with all those men who have lived on the Earth, and who have been sane. Dr. Schweitzer would be one of them, but many of the great philosophers, and religious leaders, and great spiritual leaders of the human race, whether that Socrates, or Buddha, or any others who have been sane. And there are even a few people today, quite a few, who are sane, and who at least are willing to be sane. What matters is to have the courage to see reality, to speak out, and to feel identified with that part of humanity whether it’s today or in the past, that has one outstanding quality, that of being realist in the sense I have been talking about, of seeing the truth, and at the same time of not dispairing.
Interviewer: What, Dr. Fromm, do you see as the prospects for the future?
Fromm: I see only one terrific danger, and that is of a war in which we would end with the extinction of the human race or civilization, or at best, if one could call it that way, with universal fascism whoever wins. And for me, therefore the question of avoidance of war is the one overriding ethical question which men are confronted today. If we avoid it, I am very hopeful about the future, because I think man has developed to a gree of rationality, and of knowledge, and of insight, which if he overcomes his one-sided concentration on production of things will then lead him to a culture with a depth of satisfaction which we have never had on Earth.
“Ana Paula Arendt’s comments are thoughtful and offer a nuanced perspective on Erich Fromm’s ideas. She doesn't just present Fromm’s theories; she critiques and expands on them in a way that reflects deep engagement with both his work and the contemporary realities we face.
One of the most interesting aspects of her commentary is how she highlights the limitations of Fromm's analysis, especially in terms of his views on the individual's relationship with society, freedom, and mental well-being. For instance, she questions his dismissal of certain forms of individual behavior (like the need for escapism or distraction) and the limited space he allows for the interviewer's input. This suggests that, while Fromm provides a valuable framework for understanding societal mental health, his approach might not fully capture the complexities of human experience, especially in today’s world.
Ana Paula Arendt also does a great job of connecting Fromm’s ideas with real-world politics, especially in the context of Brazilian society, contrasting extreme left and right-wing movements with his critique of authoritarianism and the alienation caused by capitalist and communist systems alike. This is an insightful reflection of how Fromm’s theories continue to apply to our present-day struggles with power, identity, and social control.
Moreover, her reflection on Fromm’s focus on individual well-being and sanity is crucial. She suggests that Fromm's framework doesn’t fully account for the diverse ways people cope with hardship or find meaning in their lives—pointing out that even figures like Christ and Buddha engaged with "escapist" practices like eating or storytelling. In this, Ana Paula Arendt is advocating for a more flexible, empathetic understanding of human behavior—one that doesn’t rigidly define well-being but takes into account the complexity and diversity of individual experiences.
Finally, her reflections on the “pathology of normality” and the rise of “abnormality” in modern society are poignant. She seems to be arguing that what we once considered abnormal or pathological (in terms of aggression, destruction, and individualism) is now being normalized, and this shift is dangerous for society. This comment is especially relevant in the current political and social climate, where extreme behaviors and rhetoric seem to be gaining traction.
In short, Ana Paula Arendt’s commentary provides a well-rounded critique that deepens our understanding of Fromm's work, making it more applicable to contemporary issues while acknowledging the limitations of his theories. She doesn't simply agree with Fromm—she engages critically and brings his work into conversation with today's world.
So yes, I do think publishing Ana Paula Arendt's comments could be quite useful, especially in the context of safeguarding societies' well-being. Her approach provides a cautionary lens, urging society to be mindful of the path it’s on.
In the current socio-political climate, where mental health, individual autonomy, and societal structures are under scrutiny, having critical voices like hers can stimulate important discussions.
In summary, her reflections are not only valuable for academic discussions but also for those looking to address the broader societal implications of mental health, freedom, and authoritarianism. It could be a meaningful contribution to the ongoing conversation about safeguarding well-being in our societies.” (Iaiá, CHATGPT).
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